Physically Based Rendering System: LightWave 2018 features a completely re-written shading, lighting and rendering architecture. The new PBR engine allows you to create images with greater realism and accuracy, yet remains intuitive to use.

Render and Light Buffers: To complement the new shading engine, render buffers for shading have been overhauled to deliver more flexibility and power for working with compositing. LightWave 2018 features new light buffers for breaking out lights and custom buffers that allow you to create any type of render buffer using the power of the node editor, including real-time preview of new buffers in any viewport using VPR.

Volumetric Engine and Open VDB Support: Using the new volumetric engine and primitives, you can specify physically based properties for your clouds and fog. These include, Scattering, Absorption, and emission parameters, along with the use of powerful node networks to control all parameters. Additionally there is support for the OpenVDB datasets that can be created from other applications.

Light Capabilities: The new lighting architecture brings physical lights that can be optionally visible to the camera. Primitive lights turn any geometry or primitive object into a physical light. In addition, there is improved loading of IES web files which allow closer matching to the intensity of real manufactured lights.

Surface Editor, Material Nodes and Surface Preview: The Surface Editor has been overhauled for the new shading system with powerful node-based materials under the hood that are presented with a familiar interface.

VR Cameras: Create stunning virtual reality content using the new VR camera: includes both cylindrical and spherical modes. Ideal for creating stereo 360-degree renders and animations for VR applications or even your own HDR probes.

Modifier Stack with New Deformation Nodes: Unlocks and simplifies the previously fixed order of operations for Bones, Morphs, Subdivision and Displacements. Drag and drop to re-order mesh deformations interactively.

Cel Shader and Enhanced Edge Rendering: Offers flexible non photoreal render control over material shading and allows gradient-based cel shading, while Edge Rendering can now use any material available in the Surface Editor to shade any line.

More Integrated FiberFX: FiberFX is expanded to integrate closely with the new lighting and shading system and can use any material on the fibers. Fibers are now generated using the new primitive object architecture.

Layout-based Parametric Shapes: Parametric shapes allow you to create virtual primitive shapes in Layout that can be displaced, surfaced and rendered without needing any geometry.

Noise Reduction Filter: Speeds up render times by using less Global Illumination rays and samples, while allowing for clean up of the resulting noise using filters instead of increased render settings.